I wish to thank John Thomaides for his initiative in questioning the proposed development at Hunter Road and Wonder World Drive in last Tuesday’s city council session. The developers were fast tracked to city council, and would have been given unprecedented ability to give a full Powerpoint presentation, where the citizens speaking would not have. Mr. Thomaides moved to make sure the citizens of San Marcos had their questions addressed, and along with Chris Jones, Fred Terry, and Gaylord Bose voted against this development.

This will be back before the council again. The citizens need to be aware and prepared.

I live along Hunter Road, and see the traffic that over one-third of the city travels through every day. I have seen two major fatality accidents in the past two years within 100 feet of where the proposed “showcase entrance” for this exclusive apartment complex is planned. The owner and developer of this property heard lengthy questioning at the planning and zoning board hearing, and the board passed those concerns on to the council. The developer refused to look at any other entrance options that would remove this from Hunter Road. At the council meeting, they again heard a specific request from Chris Jones about moving the entrance, and the developer refused to even consider this legitimate request from our council.

If you look at this photograph taken at 5 p.m.on a typical Monday evening, you see where the planned entrance for 300 more apartments is planned. This entrance needs to be moved as one of the criteria for the council to even begin to consider the other major issues of the “Showcase Pond,” and whether this fits into the city master plan for the area.

It may be argued that Hunter Road will be widened. But this is at least five years away. A entrance on this curve, on this road, as it is today, will result in more deaths each year. If you continue to push for this project with this entrance configuration, Mayor Navaraiz, you will be ensuring future accidents and fatalities at this deadly curve.

Sure, let’s prohibit this apartment complex due to traffic in favor of a grocery store or some other commercial venture that, according to ALL the experts, will create 10x the amount of traffic. And a commercial development can be built there “by right” which means they do not have to get approval from P&Z or Council! They would be permitted to have an entrance on Hunter “By Right” also. Nothing P&Z or Council could do to prevent it! Sounds smart to me!

Heck, I live on that side of town and would rather see a nice HUGE HEB on that corner anyway. Traffic be damned.